Knitting Caution to the Wind

Remember that sweater I mentioned that I cast on Sunday night?  Yeah, it still looks exactly the same.  I made some progress on it only to realize that I had just started the striping sequence, not actually knit the pattern.  So I'm back to where I was on Monday.  Same picture and everything.

This is Northern Lines by Alexandra Tinsley, which I am calling Riding on the Metro because the colors are 80s-tastic and it's my favorite 80s song about public transit (seriously, it makes sense in my head, I promise).  The pattern is gorgeous, part of a lovely pattern collection, and I am taking a serious risk on it.

The yarn Alex wrote the pattern for is Malabrigo Rios, a lovely 100% merino that knits up like a dream.  It is also way out of my budget.  The yarn I am using is Knit Picks Shine Worsted.  A cotton blend that is still soft but a fraction of the cost.  The catch is that it is just that, a cotton blend.  Northern Lines is written to be very form fitting, have negative ease, and oh yeah, look best on the more flat-chested female.  Cotton does not have nearly the stretch for that.  I swatched and got a larger gauge on the same needles as written.  By going up to a size medium, written for a 37 inch bust (I'm a 35) with three inches of negative ease, I think I may be able to make this work.  I am going to knit to just under the bust and try it on.  I find I do a lot better modifying a pattern if I have to rip back than if I try to base it on a swatch.  My math works much better with trial and error than in the abstract.  Plus, I may not want a skin tight sweater knit out of worsted weight no matter the fiber content.  I live in the American South, after all.  I dress for an expected temperature of at least sixty to seventy degrees Fahrenheit all but two months out of the year.

For more WIPs, check out the gang over at Tami's Amis.  Surely someone there has been more productive than me.